[ad_1]
Dr Richard Swainson runs Hamilton’s last DVD rental store and is a weekly contributor to the Waikato Times history page.
OPINION: Distribution patterns and streaming release dates being what they are, attempting a traditional ‘top ten’ list of films from a specific calendar year is almost a pointless exercise. Quite apart from the human failing of not being able to possibly watch all candidates, many of those you do rate technically hail from the year before.
If the criteria is films seen theatrically in 2022, my top three selections and two others making the list would be 2021 films. In first place would be Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson’s luminous coming of age story, set in the San Fernando Valley of 1973, a work of cinematic wonder, at once sweet and cynical, a partially true tale of juvenile entrepreneurship, apocryphal Hollywood yarns and an emotionally spot-on, would-be ‘older woman, younger teen’ romance.
Drive My Car would be next. A long but fascinating drama concerning the relationship between a bereaved Japanese theatre director rehearsing a multilingual production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, his cast and his enigmatic chauffeur, it is formally brilliant. If you embrace its rhythms the climatic payoff is considerable.
READ MORE:
* The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft: Werner Herzog’s powerful doco hits DocPlay
* The Northman: Big, brawling and absolutely beautifully shot nonsense
* Glass Onion, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, Fire of Love among 2022 best movies
In third position would be The Worst Person in the World, Norwegian in origin but universal in theme, with a late 20s protagonist unable to settle in her professional or personal life. A romance with an older man, a satirical cartoonist, gives way to the excitement of a new affair but she remains restless and unsatisfied. This too packs an unexpected punch, especially if one’s best friend is a satirical cartoonist with a terminal condition.
From the return of Benoit Blanc to a terrific tale about a cleaner and a doco on two passionate vulcanologists, some great flicks debuted this year.
C’mon, C’mon and Flee are two other 2021 efforts of especial note. The former sees Joaquin Phoenix as an emotionally repressed radio documentarian charged with the task of looking after a precocious nephew. Glorious black and white cinematography, particularly of New York and a loose but never sloppy structure bring to mind the likes of Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Flee, a documentary about an Afghani refugee hiding in Russia and Denmark, uses animation to preserve the anonymity of its subject, pushing the boundaries of the medium, engaging with vital concerns of the age: people smuggling, inequity, sexuality and racism.
As to 2022 films seen in 2022, an attempted top ten list, in reverse order of merit, can be found below. But first let us get the negativity out of the way.
What was the worst film of 2022? Undoubtedly, Elvis. Baz Luhrmann’s typically cold, uninvolving postmodernist approach to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was even more cartoon-like than usual, with Tom Hanks grossly overacting as a bulbous caricature of Colonel Tom and anachronistic rap music used to underscore Elvis’ debt to the black community. Strangely, Presley’s country roots got no such attention.
And the most overrated film? Everything Everywhere All at Once. Overstuffed, overbaked, overlong, this is what passes for profundity for the Marvel generation: kung fu, melodrama and mutterings about something called “the multiverse”. However good Michelle Yeoh is in the lead, a tiresome yawn.
Supplied
Fire of Love tells the tale of married volcanologists and filmmakers, using much of their own footage.
The Top 10 Films of 2022
10. Fire of Love
A documentary about volcanologists and filmmakers Katia and Maurice Kraftt, drawn mostly from footage shot by them in the 1970s and 1980s, bears witness to both nature’s power and beauty and the poignant relationship between scientists so fanatically driven to examine and record the phenomenon that their demise was preordained.
9. Blonde
A labour of love for the New Zealand born Andrew Dominik, Blonde re-imagines the Marilyn Monroe story as a horror movie, playing loose with the facts at times but also recreating iconic images with uncanny accuracy, affording a fresh and chilling perspective on what we think we know. Even those who damned this one for misogyny or exploitation – missing the point entirely – conceded the brilliance of Ana de Armas in the title role.
8. Triangle of Sadness
Dismissed by many as superficial and obvious in its targets, this Palme d’Or winning satire on the rich from Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund could be thought a cinematic equivalent of the celebrated television series The White Lotus. Stranded on an island, the affluent are at the mercy of the impoverished. Featuring the most memorable mass regurgitation scene since Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.
7. Nope
Jordan Peele’s third feature is arguably his best, a thoughtful and tense science fiction thriller in which the UFOs are hungry. Race dynamics take an apparent backseat to genre requirements but are no less prevalent.
VENDETTA FILMS
When the Cows Come Home is now screening in select cinemas.
6. When the Cows Come Home
Full disclosure: I’m in this one. In telling the tale of Waikato farmer Andrew Johnstone, Costa Botes’ warm but never cloying documentary balances character study against bovine herd dynamics, one informing the other. Beautifully shot, this ranks as one of the great evocations of New Zealand rural life.
5. Top Gun: Maverick
Setting a new standard for a sequel outstripping its original and reasserting Tom Cruise’s superstar credentials, this is everything you want in an action film: thrilling, engaging and tremendously well paced, with a climax that had folk cheering in the aisles.
4. You Won’t Be Alone
An atmospheric and nuanced horror made in the manner of American auteur Terrence Malick, You Won’t Be Alone returns vampires to period Europe – Macedonia, to be precise – evoking a sympathy that could not be further removed from Twilight melodrama.
Supplied
Apollo 10 ½ comes in third in Richard Swainson’s list of top 2022 films.
3. Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood
The third animated feature from Richard Linklater is autobiographical, a wry commentary on what it was to grow up in suburbia in the shadow of history’s greatest achievement, with a grumpy old man who worked at NASA.
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
Perhaps an allegory for the Irish Civil War which serves as an indirect backdrop, Martin McDonagh’s blarney about best friends who fall out, with tragic consequences, defies easy categorisation.
The year’s most original film, featuring a career best performance by Colin Farrell.
1. The Northman
A long, bloody, uncompromising Viking saga. If the mysticism recalls writer/director Robert Eggers’ The Witch and the battle scenes rival Game of Thrones, the drama evokes Shakespeare, the source legend being the same as inspired Hamlet.
[ad_2]
Source link